Of the writings attributed to these fathers, some at least are of doubtful genuineness (on this point, see the individual titles referred to).
There can be no question of the value of these writ- ings to church history, and even to our knowledge of Scripture, not so much for the facts they contain, for these are of slight importance, or for their critical or doctrinal contents, but on account of the illustrations they afford of the practical religious life of the period, and also on account of the quotations they contain from the N. T. Scriptures. "It has often been re- marked that there is no period of the Christian church in regard to which we have so little information as that of above thirty years, reaching from the death of Peter and Paul to that of John. There is no good reason to believe that any of the writings of the apostolical fa- thers now extant were published during that interval. Those of them that are genuine do not convey to us much information concerning the condition of the church, and add but little to our knowledge upon any subject : and what ma}' be gleaned from later writers concerning this period is very defective, and not much to be depended upon. It is enough that God has given us in His Word ever}' thing necessary to the forma- tion of our opinions and the regulation of our conduct ; and we cannot doubt that He has in mercy and wis- dom withheld from us what there is too much reason to think would have been greatly abused. As mat- ters stand, we have these two important points estab- lished: first, that we have no certain information — nothing on which, as a mere question of evidence, we can place any firm reliance — as to what the inspired apostles taught and ordained but what is contained in or deduced from the canonical Scriptures; and, sec- ondly, that there are no men, except the authors of the books of Scripture, to whom there is any thing like a plausible pretence for calling upon us to look
j up to as guides or oracles" (Cunningham, Historical Theology, vol. i, ch. iv).
j It is obvious that the writings of men so near to the
j time of the writers of the N. T. must be of great im- portance for the criticism of the N. T., and for the set-
\ tlement of the canon. Lardner, after giving lists of
i the citations and allusions to be found in the Apostol- ical Fathers severally, sums up as follows : " In these writings there is all the notice taken of the books of the New Testament that could be expected. Barna- bas, though so early a writer, appears to have been acquainted with the Gospel of St. Matthew. Clem- ent, writing in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth on occasion of some discussion there, desires them to ' take into their hands the epis- tle of the blessed apostle Paul,' written to them, and refers them particularly to a part of that epistle in which he admonished them against strife and conten-
j tion. He has likewise, in his epistle, divers clear and undeniable allusions to St. Paul's epistle written to the church over which he presided, and in whose name
; he wrote, not to mention at present other things. 5.
t Quotations there could not lie, as we have often ob- served, in the book of Hernias ; but allusions there are to the bocks of the New Testament such as were suit-
I able to his design. G. Ignatius, writing to the Church of Ephesus, takes notice of the epistle of Paul written to them, in which he ' makes mention of them in Christ Jesus.' 7. Lastly, Polycarp, writing to the Philippi- ans, refers them to the epistle of the ' blessed and re- nowned Paul,' written to them, if not also, as I im- agine, to the epistles sent to the Thessalonians, Chris- tians of the same province, not to mention now his
t express quotations of other books of the New Testa-
j ment, or his numerous and manifest allusions to them. 8. From these particulars here mentioned, it is appar- ent that they have not omitted to take notice of an\
j book of the New Testament which, as far as we are
; able to judge, their design led them to mention. Their silence, therefore, about a^iy other books can be no prejudice to their genuineness, if we shall hereafter meet with credible testimonies to them. And we may have good reason to believe that these apostolical fa-
i thers were seme of those persons from whom succeed- ing writers received that full and satisfactory evidence which they appear to have had concerning the several books of the New Testament'' (Lardner, Works, ii,
; 113 sq.).
The importance of the subject justifies the insertion
: here of the following elaborate examination of all the
! citations from the N. T. made by the apostolic fathers, prepared for this work by the Bev. Wolcott Calkins, of Philadelphia. The second epistle of Clement and the larger recension of Ignatius, being regarded as spuri- ous, are not cited. The text used is Hefele's. The abridgments used are Clem., for First Epistle of Clem- ent to the Corinthians; Bar., Cath. Epistle of Barna-